Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The European Union in the World-System Perspective(Evropeiskii Sojus I Budushaja Mirovaja Sistema)

2007; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Arno Tausch,

Economic Development and Digital Transformation

The process of European Union eastern enlargement involving the Luxemburg and the Helsinki groups of candidate countries was positively accomplished in 2004. But what next, and with what effects for world society after the eastern border of the Union will run from Estonia in the far North of Europe to the shores of the Black Sea? Former Austrian Chancellor Dr. Wolfgang Schussel, for example, spoke about a membership perspective of up to 40 states in a perspective of 30 or 40 years, involving the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, Turkey and the states of the Southern Caucasus (Die Presse, 20th October, 1999). On the 28th of August 2001 we heared the Belgian Foreign Minister (and EU Council President for the second half of 2001) saying that there is an EU membership perspective for Russia in the long run as well (Die Presse, 28th of August 2001: EU Council President, Belgium's Foreign Minister Louis Michel, deems it to be possible that Russia could perhaps become at a not too distant date an EU member. Because Russia belongs historically and culturally to the European space) It is evident that such a very profound enlargement of the European Union would fundamentally alter the landscape of world society. It is shown in the article in detail that Europe suffers from a considerable technological backwardness vis-a-vis the U.S. Russia, which after years of a Kondratieff depression is still a large-scale technological power, would be the natural partner of Western Europe in a still closer technological cooperation. European capital and Russian technology could benefit tremendously from each other, not to mention such sectors as energy and human capital, in an evolving pan-European economic space and a European social model that would finally overcome the development cleavages that opened up in the world economy since the long 16th Century, and that marginalized the European Orthodox East.